SQL Database Pricing Model

Question

I'm new to Azure and I wanna ask about their database pricing model specifically for SQL database service, my question is what is the difference between a DTU based database and a vCore database and will the customer still be charged for a DTU based database that is idle or not being used?

Answer 1

Hi @Audy Naufal Ghiffari

Will the customer still be charged for a DTU based database that is idle or not being used?
Yes, there is a charges applied.

A database transaction unit (DTU) represents a blended measure of CPU, memory, reads, and writes.
]1

DTU-based purchasing model, you can choose between the basic, standard, and premium service tiers for Azure SQL Database.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql/database/service-tiers-dtu#compare-the-dtu-based-service-tiers

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Answer 2

Hi @Audy Naufal Ghiffari Welcome to Microsoft Q&A and Thank you for posting your question.
vCore model provides a dedicated core for your database and can be scaled independent of storage. In the DTU model you are basically paying for a share of CPU, Memory and storage.Virtual core (vCore)-based purchasing model provides a choice between a provisioned compute tier and a serverless compute tier. With the provisioned compute tier, you choose the exact amount of compute resources that are always provisioned for your workload.
Database transaction unit (DTU)-based purchasing model provides bundled compute and storage packages balanced for common workloads.

The below documents explain this in more details.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-sql/database/purchasing-models

This article provides some detail: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sql-database/sql-database-service-tiers-vcore

Hope that helps

Regards
Oury

Answer 3

Hi @Audy Naufal Ghiffari In the DTU-based purchasing model, you can choose between the basic, standard, and premium service tiers for Azure SQL Database.

• Basic (For less demanding workloads)
• Standard(For workloads with typical performance requirements )
• Premium(For IO intensive workloads) and prices differ from one to another.**

As @SUNOJ KUMAR YELURU mentioned below, the DTU-based purchasing model offers a set of preconfigured bundles of compute resources and included storage to drive different levels of application performance. If you prefer the simplicity of a preconfigured bundle and fixed payments each month, If you prefer the simplicity of a preconfigured bundle and fixed payments each month, the DTU-based model might be more suitable for your needs.

Customer will still be charged even though DTU Database is inactive or not being used. The only model that supports not being charged when the server is "idle" is Serverless which is only part of the vCore purchasing model

Please do not forget to mark as accepted answer if the reply was helpful.

Regards,
Oury